In anticipation of Final Fantasy XIII and XIII Versus, Ven and I decided to do Lightning and Noctis. Cosplays and props are completely handmade. To make the swords, we hand cut, molded, and shaped sintra and craftfoam. My Noctis sword also has a glowing crystal part on the top, and Lightning's sword has sections that move. Small details were made with paperclay. Clothes were made from patterns that we drafted on our own. Desgins on Noctis's jacket, buckles, and leather pouches were all handsewn. Our wigs were also custom dyed, cut, and styled by us.
Just as a side note - We made these cosplays in 2007 when there was only a ~60 second trailer and a few concept images out. We had to zoom in a lot for little details. Character designs also changed a lot while we were making the cosplays so some parts are a fusion of concepts. We did our best to make our cosplays as accurate as possible given the references we had to work from.